dellas
Thursday 27th January 2011 3:31am
Manchester
4,598 posts
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ January 13 2011, 3:27 PM GMT
But what a lot of supporters of keeping a sitcom running and running always fail to address is the usual decline in standard of sitcoms that reach several series. Records reveal it is very hard, unless the writing team is as gifted as a Galton & Simpson or Croft & Perry, to keep the episodes as entertaining in the 8th series as they were in the 1st and 2nd.
And then you have the factor of viewers just getting bored with seeing the sitcom all the time and this detracts often from the overall status of the show. I'd say Only Fools and Horses suffered this way, some people were glad to see the back of a show they once loved. This really does have an effect on viewers' attitudes to sitcoms and should not be so readily dismissed as silly.
Some very big names have pulled their mega big sitcom creations at the very height of their success mainly for this reason, so they have told us. Yes, they were influenced by having plenty of offers for other work on the table, I acknowledge this, but they could have coined in easy millions on continuing sitcoms like The Office or FT. These were gold mines that only the integrity and artistic conscience of their creators saved from being mined to death, in the worst case scenario.
I applaud such bold moves against intense commercial pressure on them to carry on, and it has indeed saved some shows from ever being accused of losing their sparkle and punch. And it has done wonders for the crediblity of British TV Sitcom that two or three ended suddenly on a high like this, it knocks the Americans flat, because they have no such artistic control over theirs - if a sitcom is a star there then it will almost always be run way beyond its natural life, treated like a global product, a brand! Well done to those Brits who've dared to treat their beloved creations like a work of art instead, against intense commercial pressure not to!
Imo, Miranda can happily carry on till eternity if it wants to because it has never been a classic or even a very good original creation and so it has no great reputation to squander. It was a highly commercial confection from the very start and so it belongs to this highly commercial model of milking every last drop out of the thing.
I agree Alfred, no space left sort of..